Bacteriophage genomes are highly diverse. Potential factors influencing phage diversity are host diversity, presence of other phages, and environmental factors like spatial structure. We will combine bioinformatics data analysis and evolutionary modelling to untangle the drivers of phage diversity across space and time. Phage diversity will be compared in different types of environments, such as marine environments, for which most public data is available, and soil, a highly structured and diverse environment.  

Specifically, we will (1) formulate an evolutionary model to describe phage diversity based on environmental and community properties; (2) estimate phage diversity across space and time from public metagenomes; (3) compare the model predictions to the diversity estimates of biological data; and (4) refine the model based on these observations.

This project will be performed by a computational PhD student co-supervised by Dr. Hilje Doekes, Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University.